"Okay, I am finally done!" Will leaped in joy to see his marvelous creation, an actual golem built by his own two hands.
The area around him was a complete mess. Bits of gold ore scattered around. Tools everywhere. And a large pile of used gold was sitting on the side, it was all the gold he failed to use when making his golem. For some reason it seemed easier to use newer gold rather than used gold.
All that aside, he was still beyond overjoyed to see his creation. To others it looked like a failure, as if a beginner tried to make a frankenstein statue and… tried his best.
But to Will, in his eyes it was a masterpiece, his masterpiece to be exact.
The gold golem was currently lying down on the floor, like a marionette when it's not used (a type of puppet that's operated with sticks and wires). Will finally managed to make a golem statue after only making each piece individually, and then connected them all using screws, or melted metal.
Will placed the golem core in the golden statue's head. No sooner than later it started moving on its own.
Adaline saw this and got spooked. It's not the first time she's seeing this but somehow it's irregular movements creeped her out.
It stood up very clumsily, as if it had trouble adjusting its own body. It made sense as it's limbs weren't perfect. After a while, it stood up.
"Master." The gold statue spoke in a hoarse voice. It was leaning on one leg as it wasn't perfectly made.
"It's beautiful." Will started to tear up a bit. He has never been so proud of himself.
*Clang*
The golem's head fell off, along with an arm, the rest of the body went limp but the head remained active.
"Master."
"Okay, it's not perfect but I'll take it!"
Regardless of its obvious flaws, he was very happy with it. Even now he couldn't stop smiling.
After connecting the head and making sure that the rest of the body was well connected, and adjusting it's legs a bit, Will decided to test it out in the mines. The purpose of making this golem is so he wouldn't have to mine anymore.
"Golem, take this." Will handed him an ordinary pickaxe. His enchanted pickaxe was better than any other pickaxe, but he was afraid that the golem would destroy it. Just because it was enchanted doesn't mean that it's unbreakable.
"Master." The golem reached with one hand.
"Come down here. And start mining." Will wanted to observe the golem in person.
The golem stood in place without moving a muscle.
"..." Will.
"..." Golem.
"Do you know what mining means?" Will asked.
"Master."
"Okay, just take this pickaxe and copy what I am doing." Will showed the golem what to do by hitting the stone with his pickaxe.
The golem headed down the mining area, and started to mine stone. It's hand wasn't properly made and wasn't functioning well, it could barely raise it's hand to mine through stone.
"Crap! I don't want to start over again! Arms are the most complicated limbs to make, for me at least. Try using your other arm." Will commanded.
The golem then used it's left hand, and surprisingly, it was a lot better than using its right hand. It swung fast and hard.
"Sweet! Okay, use your left arm only when mining. Also, here. Use this instead." Will decided to give him his enchanted pickaxe. Even if it breaks, which it might because it's durability will get worn down, he could make more anytime he wants to.
"Go all the way down, and keep mining. If you find any rare ore like this, or this, or this." Will showed him various ores, gold, silver, bronze, everything.
"Actually, you know what, everything you mine bring it back here and just dumb it all into these chests. Make sure to leave nothing behind." Will brought out 3 empty chests and placed them on the ground.
After thinking about it for a second, he thought of something better and more efficient.
"You know what? Let's go down. Follow me. I'll show you what you need to do. If you run out of space to place the stuff in, let me know. Understood?"
"Master."
"I'll take that as a yes."
After carefully guiding and observing the golem for almost an hour, making sure that it understood everything and did not mess anything up, only then was Will finally relieved. His days of mining are over. The hard work he put into the golem did pay off.
"Still, it couldn't help to make a few more of those." Will wanted to make more but that would take time and effort, and also he lacked the materials to make another one. Lucky for him, it should be but a matter of time before his golem finds more low-tier mana ores or even higher tier mana ores.
"Wait, more of those." Will had an idea on how to make more golems without using any effort, by making another blueprint.
A blueprint can copy any structure and make another one like paste and copy. All he needed were the correct materials. Although he isn't sure if it works on golems, he has the slightest bit of hope that it could work.
Problem is he needed A LOT of paper to make another one. Good news is he can easily get them, but it will take time.
Will went back outside to do something he had been meaning to do, build a solid base. After hiding all this time he felt like building a proper base with towers, buildings, instead of living underground. Honestly it feels like he was suffocating staying underground. It felt like how it was during quarantine.
And maybe someday in the future, he can expand that base into a large castle, which has been his dream goal for years now.
Meanwhile…
The sorcerers and potion makers finally met up with Sandra, Bruce, Jasmine, and the other remaining villagers.
All of them could not believe that two heroes were already here. Sandra was easily recognizable because of her red hair, which few people had, including the Empress. And there's also Bruce who liked to wear his gi uniform.
The sorcerers thanked the heroes, most of which did not thank Jasmine, sadly. All she wanted was to be properly rewarded to help her economic situation as well as her family. This time she was sure to get some money or something valuable she could sell.
They all then brought back the sorcerers to the Reyes kingdom safely and as quickly as they could, but the trip would take at most a day.
A few hours had gone by. Soon everyone knew what Clement had done.
"DAMMIT!" In the kingdom, sitting on his throne, the king punched his throne out of anger which echoed throughout the room. He already heard about Clement.
At first he was glad to hear that they managed to capture him and safely retrieve his daughter. He was happy for his reliable kingsmen who brought her back. Then he hears not only did he escape, he killed 2 sorcerers who were 5-stripped, and they had no idea where he was now. Once again they lost him and not for the first time either.
Damian looked down in shame and fear. This is the most he had messed up in his kingsmen career. Damian was in charge of the sorcerers when they captured Clement, so as always when something goes wrong, the blame goes to the one in charge, meaning him. He thought that he could rely on his men to take care of him.
Harmony heard the news and was secretly relieved. She tried to get her father to imprison Clement instead of executing him, but he is a very stubborn man, and he thought of quickly killing off loose ends before they become a bigger problem.
"Your majesty, I-" Damian spoke out but was cut off by the king, who waved his hand at him.
"I am not going to punish you severely, only because you've done a good job for me over the years. But, as long as I allow it, you will not set foot here again until you manage to bring Clement's head back to me on a silver plate. Am I clear?"
"Yes, your majesty." Damian said. He thought he would receive a harsh punishment but it was lenient compared to what he had in mind.
"Go, now!"
Damian flew off to search for Clement. If he found him once he could find him again, although he only found him out of sheer luck.
"At least our daughter is back and safe with us." The queen held the king's hands firmly and warmly. He sighed.
"Yeah, you're right. At least now we can sleep easier, but still, Clement must be eliminated at all costs."
"Dad, I-
"Your majesty!" A noble kneeled before the king interrupting Harmony.
"Oh, did you finish writing the new tax laws?" The king asked, he had been waiting for this.
"New tax laws?" Harmony said, visibly confused. Was there a need to add more tax laws?
"I did." The noble gave the king a long scroll. In it were detailed tax laws: such as a new tax like traveling tax, which people will be charged when you don't use the roads. And another new tax that charges anyone when you DO USE the roads, the fee depends on the number of people, number of mounts, how much weight they're carrying and so on.
The list goes on and on. Some taxes even charge you gold or large amounts of silver coins.
However there are people who are exempt from paying taxes, nobles, heroes, the king and his family, and 5-stripped sorcerers, men sorcerers only though, and it doesn't include other family members or friends.
"I love it. We'll announce the tax laws tomorrow along with the safe return of my daughter" The king said very pleased with this.
"Your majesty, is there a need to not include female sorcerers from this tax law?" The noble asked. The king was the one who added that law.
"Of course there is a reason."
"May I ask why?"
"Because I am the king."
"I'll be taking my leave then." The noble bowed as he left the room.
Harmony read through the tax law. She wasn't pleased with it.
"Dad, why did you add so many taxes?" Harmony asked, concerned how the people would react.
"For the heroes, and also because the kingdom is bankrupt and is in dire need of money, which we don't have but need."
The reason the kingdom is suffering financially is because of the heroes. Every time they're summoned the kingdom wastes a large amount of its resources making sure to protect and arm all the heroes, and they always had the resources and income to support the heroes, but this time they were seriously lacking funds to even properly arm more than 10 heroes.
The income problem is most likely the Empress's doing. She may not have the heroes, but she has more money than the kingdom ever did since it was built.
"Then can't we reuse some of the old hero's equipment?" Harmony said.
When heroes die, their corpses are burned to ashes, are then placed in a coffin or urn depending on their requests, and they are then buried on the ground for some reason along with their belongings, including magical and enchanted weapons they used in their times.
The corpses are burned because the Great Sage did fear that one day another Witch would arrive, and use the heroes' corpses to her advantage. Wouldn't be the first time a hero appeared with the same power as another hero. Luckily for this world that hasn't happened as of dare.
Although in some cases like the hero Christopher Lawrence who died and his corpse was never retrieved again, they just bury an empty coffin or urn with some valuable stuff to pay respect to the heroes.
Right now there were most likely dozens or even hundreds of magical items buried in the ground, but most of it was already corroded and useless. People respect the heroes too much to steal from them. And those who tried their luck to steal those valuable items, will find themselves being executed on the spot.
"No, we can't." The king said this but he had the same idea as his daughter, but sadly the Great Sage is protecting their tombs, well not their tombs exactly but more like the powerful weapons that rest inside.
He did like the idea of using the past heroes' weapons for the new heroes to use, because the old heroes are dead and are of no use to them anymore, but the Great Sage will never allow it. He might be the king but the one who holds all the power is the Great Sage.
"Okay but I am worried about these tax laws. Won't the people be mad about this?" Harmony asked.
"Let them be mad." The king didn't care. He knows that they would be made, because he too would be mad if someone forced him to pay all these unnecessary taxes.
However, there is something he had that the public didn't have, heroes, nobles, and sorcerers. All of which were very powerful people.
There is a reason why he is the only king who has added so many unnecessary tax laws, because the Great Sage really doesn't seem to care anymore.
It might have started when he didn't care about lifting the slave elf laws, the very same law he added over 200 years ago. Of course he thought of abusing his power a little more now that the Great Sage is caring less, but he didn't want to push it too far, yet.
"I'll be going to my room, then." Harmony bowed down and headed to her room. Along with her 2 nobles accompanied her. After what happened with Clement, the king wanted to make sure his daughter was protected 24-7.
"By the way, honey, did you manage to find a group for the hero?" Asked the Queen. She is referring to Victoria, the one fat hero nobody likes.
"Oh, her. No, no one wanted to be with her." The king slouched down. He treated the heroes with respect for many reasons, at least only the ones who were of use to him.
"Then what did you do with her?"
"I let her join with some nobles and sorcerers. Because of her hero identity they were gladly eager to accept her into the group."
"Why is it that none of the other heroes wants to group up with her?"
"I heard that she is or was a bully in their school."
"Oh." The Queen seemed unimpressed. It's not the worst hero to have been summoned. Even after the Witch was killed, there had been a handful of heroes who were corrupted, evil, perverted. Lucky for them the Great Sage put them down before they could wreak havoc.
Compared to some other heroes, she seemed like a saint.
"Although I am worried. This year's batch of heroes are weak." The king said worried.
"I agree. I watched them practice, and it is not like what I expected when I read records from them."
Most of the heroes right now were too soft, weak minded, weak willed, lazy, scared, stupid, irresponsible, or are just very sensitive. At first it was easier to control them. But after they started getting comfortable in this new world, their true colors started to show.
"Yeah, these heroes are rather weak. Shaun Quincy was already a fighter, and so were most of the heroes from his time because they just recently came out of a war, most of them were missing limbs if I remember correctly, but they were fierce, strong, and fearless. And the heroes from 1820 were already fighters, some of them were even slaves and fought for their freedom or something. And 1720 there was that plague… Luckily the Great Sage cured them from that disease, or got rid of them? I don't remember."
"Wait, didn't these heroes also have a plague or something going on in their world?"
"Yes, my Queen."
"Shouldn't we be worried that they carried it over to our world?"
"No. The Great Sage said he cured them. He does have experience with this so it's fine."
"Good."
Meanwhile…
A day went by. Will quickly got to building his castle, it wasn't easy at first since he first had to get rid of the giant hill that was covering his base, he didn't think that one through and it was a pain to get rid of. With his golem working in the mines, it made it easier to collect the building materials needed to make his castle.
The area around his base was a bit of a mess since he had to make giant hills to hide his base. But with the greenery returning once again thanks to Adaline, it'll be a matter of time before he could cut and produce more trees for wood.
And also his HP increases by the day when he makes exotic pills.
Currently, his HP is now {2200/2200} lately Adaline has been producing a good number of exotic flowers. The more she produces the more his HP rises. It also helped that the exotic seed also produced exotic flowers, although not as fast as Adaline.
He also enchanted his armor, spare armor, main armor, weapons, bullets, mining tools. He created another room for enchanting his items. And also created a secret little base where he kept his enchanted items in, just because he can, and now he liked being prepared. Will has never felt this busy before. Strangely enough he didn't hate it, it was basically like grinding in any sandbox game.
Adaline, who was resting comfortably, sensed someone familiar approaching them. She made a hole through the wall because she couldn't fit through the small door. The loud noise scared Will.
"Dammit, Adaline, that scared the living hell out of me!" Will said that, but took a mental note that he should make a door big enough for Adaline to fit through.
From the distance, he saw Adaline running towards a dark figure riding an organic creature.
It was far away, but thanks to the new enchantments he added to his mask, he could see very clearly who it was, it was Grace riding on her organic creature headed towards them.
{Exotic wooden mask}
{Enchantment: Night vision V: Can see very clearly in the dark}
{Enchantment: Eagle vision V: Can see very far}
{Enchantment: Defense+ V}
{Enchantment: Durability+ V}
Before the only enchantment his mask had was Night Visions I, but he increased it and added more useful enchantments.
With this enchantment he could even see small, tiny insects from a huge distance, like the cliche Mc's in most cultivation light novels who have increased senses, but in this case he only increases his sense of sight.
"Attack mode {off}" Will said and his sentry turrets won't attack anyone else.
Grace stopped meters away from the sentry turret's firing range. She remembered how a bullet grazed her shoulder from those sentries. If she were to enter carelessly she might not get so lucky.
Seeing Adaline act all friendly towards her and her mount made her smile.
Will walked towards them, signaling them that it was safe to enter.
"Grace!" Will shouted.
Grace got off her mount and handed him a microphone shaped object.
"This is the magical item you asked for." She got straight to the point.
Will touched the item, and sure enough it was the magical item he needed to find another magical item he needed.
"Thank you." Will headed back to his base.
"Will, wait!"
"What?" Will stopped in his tracks.
"Are we… good now?" Grace wanted to be sure that Will wasn't angry and took away Adaline from her father.
"Sort of."
"My dad said that trust is like glass. You can break it and fix it again, but it'll never be the same. But I am trying my best to mend it, to fix the mistake I made. I could give a thousand excuses, but I know that it won't fix anything. I just want to let you know that I will do whatever it takes to fix my mistake."
Will stared at Grace. What she said was sincere.
He saw how Adaline was playing around with the organic goat creature. He also noticed how the sun was already setting down, the area was getting dark.
He entered his base without saying a word.
Grace looked down and sighed. It seemed like Will hadn't forgiven her yet.
As she was about to leave, he heard him shout. "Hey, you coming? It's getting dark. Just don't break anything again." Will said from above the walls.
Will only entered to add Grace and the other organic creature into his {allies} box so now his sentry turrets won't shoot them when he activates the turrets.
"Thank you. I'm only staying here until sunrise."
"Yeah, yeah." Will waved it off as not important. Regardless of her presence, he continued building his castle. For some reason he couldn't sleep today, and he didn't get as tired as before.
Meanwhile…
2 heroes, and a single sorceress entered the kingdom.
"Heroes, you have done a splendid job!" The king was happy to hear what the heroes did, which was protecting the people.
Bruce, Sandra, and Jasmine managed to safely bring back the remaining villagers to the kingdom for protection and shelter them temporarily.
They didn't say anything. Bruce felt like he did nothing to deserve any praise. Sandra kept looking at her communication stone. And Jasmine was hoping to get an actual good reward this time.
"You all deserve to be rewarded for your actions. Everyone in the kingdom is talking about it and praising the heroes for your valiant efforts. They're treating you like gods more than before." The king exaggerated it just to make them feel better.
"Nobles, hand them their rewards… What are you doing here?" The king said to Jasmine.
"I helped take down the dragon and fought and protected the villagers." Jasmine said.
"She did. She did save the people long before we got there." Sandra said.
"Without Jasmine a lot of people would have died." Bruce added. He heard Jasmine's story and both of them wanted to help her out.
"If that's what the heroes say so." The king was mildly annoyed but he wanted to make a good impression on the heroes. He gave them each a bag of gold coins, each carrying only 50 gold coins in it.
Bruce wanted to say that he didn't do anything to deserve this reward… but he liked money so he is going to keep it. Jasmine accepted it with grace as her eyes sparkled, and so did Sandra's eyes sparkle like diamonds.
"Don't spend it all in one place." The king said in a joking manner.
The heroes left the room after thanking him, along with Jasmine tagging along. The king sighed as he lost 150 gold coins in a second, that was 50 more gold coins than he expected to give out.
Most definitely if the heroes weren't there and didn't help Jasmine, who indeed did most of the work, he would have never rewarded her.
"Thank you, Bruce and Sandra." Jasmine was happy to receive her reward. 50 gold coins wasn't a huge sum but it wasn't low either.
"Why are you thanking us? You did most of the work." Sandra said.
"So did Will." Bruce added. He wasn't there but he heard it from them.
"Indeed he did. I gotta go now and give this to my family." Jasmine flew away back to her house.
"See ya!" Bruce and Sandra waved goodbye. Sandra was still keeping a close eye on the communication stone in case Will ever messaged her.
"I'm going to rest. Anything I can help you with?" Asked Bruce.
"No, I'm okay."
"Okay." Bruce left.
Then, just as he left, the communication stone in Sandra's hand glowed.
{Hey.}
Sandra smiled. This is how Will always wrote when they texted each other every day.
{Hey.} She replied back.